The Last Ritual-1969

While Tom Wilson was running Rasputin Productions primarily on the ABC label, he was also involved in a few productions for the Capitol label under the guise of Lumumba Productions, among them the Serfs and the Last Ritual, in fact one of his Rasputin bands, Ill Wind, originally was to be released on Capitol, but contract negotiations with the label stalled.

The Last Ritual is more proto-prog rock than psych and features shifting tempos and styles from country to chamber music, heard best/worst and most seemingly random on the near-17 minute album closer, "Bugler's Reveille." Conducted, composed and arranged by one Allan Springfield, there's nearly nothing about this album or band online; in fact, many listings on discographies or the occasional copy for sale seem to think there's no band name for some reason.

One intriguing snippet comes via a comment (by a child of one of the horn players) on a blog post seeking information about the group, and states that the album was recorded mostly live rather than tracked in pieces — which would be truly impressive considering the complexity of much of this material. A few clues here and there also turn up info about a direct follow up band named Chelsea Beige.(Isthmus The Daily Page)